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THE CONFESSIONAL

"When thou hast met with careless hearts and cold,
Hearts that young love may touch, but never hol
Not changeless, as the loved and left of old---
Remember me---remember me---

I passionately pray of thee!"

LADY E. S. WORTLEY.

I THOUGHT of thee-I thought of thee,
On ocean-many a weary night—
When heaved the long and sullen sea,
With only waves and stars in sight.

We stole along by isles of balm,

We furl'd before the coming gale,

We slept amid the breathless calm,

We flew beneath the straining sailBut thou wert lost for years to me,

And, day and night, I thought of thee !

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In France-amid the gay saloon,
Where eyes as dark as eyes may be

Are many as the leaves in June-
Where life is love, and ev'n the air

Is pregnant with impassion'd thought, And song and dance and music are

With one warm meaning only fraught— My half-snar'd heart broke lightly free, And, with a blush, I thought of thee!

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Florence,-where the fiery hearts
Of Italy are breathed away

In wonders of the deathless arts;
Where strays the Contadina down
Val d'Arno with a song of old;
Where clime and woman seldom frown,
And life runs over sands of gold;

I stray'd to lone Fiesolé

On many an eve, and thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Rome, when on the Palatine

Night left the Cæsar's palace free

To Time's forgetful foot and mine; Or, on the Coliseum's wall,

When moonlight touch'd the ivied stone, Reclining, with a thought of all

That o'er this scene has come and goneThe shades of Rome would start and flee Unconsciously-I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee, 'In Vallombrosa's holy shade,

Where nobles born the friars be,

By life's rude changes humbler made. Here Milton fram'd his Paradise;

I slept within his very cell;

And, as I clos'd my weary eyes,

I thought the cowl would fit me wellThe cloisters breath'd, it seem'd to me, Of heart's-case-but I thought of thee.

I thought of thee—I thought of thee,
In Venice, on a night in June;
When, through the city of the sea,

Like dust of silver slept the moon.
Slow turn'd his oar the gondolier,

And, as the black barks glided by, The water to my leaning ear

Bore back the lover's passing sighIt was no place alone to be

I thought of thee-I thought of thee.

I thought of thee--I thought of thee,
In the Ionian Isles-when straying
With wise Ulysses by the sea-

Old Homer's songs around me playing ; Or, watching the bewitched caique,

That o'er the star-lit waters flew,

I listen'd to the helmsman Greek,

Who sung the song that Sappho knew-

The poet's spell, the bark, the sea,

All vanished-as I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,

In Greece-when rose the Parthenon
Majestic o'er the Egean sea,

And heroes with it, one by one;
When, in the grove of Academe,
Where Lais and Leontium stray'd
Discussing Plato's mystic theme,
I lay at noontide in the shade-
The Egean wind, the whispering tree,
Had voices-and I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Asia-on the Dardanelles ;

Where, swiftly as the waters flee,

Each wave some sweet old story tells;

And, seated by the marble tank

Which sleeps by Ilium's ruins old,

(The fount where peerless Helen drank,

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And Venus lav'd her locks of gold,*)

In the Scamander,-before contending for the prize of beauty on Mount Ida. Its head waters fill a beautiful tank near the walls of Troy.

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